Sue George. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)

Harvard residents who know Sue George’s reputation as a master baker make a beeline for her treats when they’re featured at area functions, including the Harvard Fall Fete and the Harvard Schools Trust Gala. Now the products of George’s culinary skills and creativity are available to the rest of the world through her business, Harvard Sweet Boutique. The world is taking notice, as indicated by recent coverage at www.dailycandy.com, a fashion and lifestyle website, and a standing order from the Boston Celtics to provide birthday gift packages to the team’s entire staff, including players, coaches, and business managers.

George offers a wide variety of brownies, bars, cookies, and toffee. She bakes everything from scratch in small batches, using all natural ingredients. George noted that her ingredients are the finest available, and include European chocolate with the highest cocoa butter content, pure double-strength vanilla extracts, premium grade nuts, and fresh grade A butter. She’s rented space in a commercial kitchen in Hudson and is fully licensed by the Board of Health.

George looked far and wide to find custom packaging materials that convey her sense of style and her products’ premium nature. Her baked goods are packaged in colorful beribboned boxes that recipients can save and reuse. George’s special attention to packaging makes her treats perfect for hostess gifts. “I package everything up a little bit differently, according to the occasion,” she said.

George plans to expand her network of retail outlets gradually. She hopes to make connections with the parents of area boarding-school and college students who want to treat their kids to homemade goodies. George said that she’s content at this point to let the business grow incrementally, so she can maintain high quality and provide her customers with outstanding service. That being said, a short article about Harvard Sweet Boutique in the online style blog, Daily Candy, on March 27 resulted in a surge of orders that has had George baking up a storm to respond to demand.

George’s current passion is quite a departure from her earlier education and professional life as a software engineer. Looking for a career that would mesh with her family’s life, she applied her longtime interest in cooking to start a successful catering business. Her enjoyment of cake decorating and baking classes led her to take further training at Johnson and Wales University in Providence. “I love doing this,” George said. “It’s not work; it’s fun for me.”